SupportScope Support quality audit Support Quality Audit · USD 69
One policy is generating 31 percent of your tickets
Ninety tickets scored against clarity, accuracy, ownership and resolution, with the root cause the scores kept pointing at.
Your team is good. Scored against four dimensions across ninety tickets, they are accurate, they take ownership and they are quick. The problem is that a third of the tickets should never have existed, and no amount of support quality fixes a policy that customers cannot understand.
Agent quality scores 4.1 out of 5 and resolution accuracy is 94 percent. Thirty one percent of all contacts relate to the returns window, and 62 percent of those are repeat contacts from the same customer. This is a policy and page problem being absorbed by a support team.
Scorecard
How the team is performing
| Share of tickets | Resolved first time | Read | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Returns window | 31% | 38% | The whole problem |
| Delivery tracking | 22% | 89% | Working well |
| Sizing and fit | 16% | 91% | Working well |
| Damaged on arrival | 11% | 95% | Working well |
| Payment and refunds | 9% | 84% | Acceptable |
| Everything else | 11% | 92% | Working well |
Remove the returns tickets and first-time resolution across the rest of the queue is 90 percent. Your support team does not have a quality problem. It has one topic it cannot resolve, because the answer depends on a policy nobody can apply consistently.
Root cause
Why the returns window generates repeat contacts
The policy page says 30 days. The confirmation email says 30 days from delivery. The returns portal calculates from dispatch. Those are three different dates, and on a 6 day average delivery time they can differ by almost a week.
| Where the customer reads it | What it says | Date it implies for a 2 Sept order |
|---|---|---|
| Policy page | 30 days to return | Ambiguous |
| Order confirmation email | 30 days from delivery | 8 October |
| Dispatch email | Not mentioned | n/a |
| Returns portal | Calculates silently from dispatch | 3 October |
| Agent macro 14 | 30 days from delivery | 8 October |
| Agent macro 22 | 30 days from order | 2 October |
Two macros in your own help desk state different rules. Agents are not being inconsistent; they are being consistent with whichever macro they picked, and the portal disagrees with both.
- Contact 1
Customer is refused by the portal
Portal says the window has closed. Customer believes they are inside it because the confirmation email said 30 days from delivery.
- Contact 2
Agent applies macro 14 and grants it
Correct under the email, contradicts the portal. Customer is happy. No record of why an exception was made.
- Contact 3
Refund is shorter than expected
Return shipping was deducted, which is on the policy page and in neither email. Second complaint, different topic, same customer.
- Result
Three contacts, one order
Scored individually each is handled well. Together they are a customer who contacted you three times about something a clear page would have answered once.
Macros
What is wrong in the canned responses
| Macro | Issue | Used in sample | Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14, Returns window | Says from delivery. Conflicts with the portal | 21 times | Rewrite |
| 22, Returns window alt | Says from order. Conflicts with macro 14 | 9 times | Delete |
| 07, Refund timing | Says 3 to 5 days. Actual is 5 to 10 | 17 times | Correct the number |
| 31, Damaged item | Asks for a photo the portal already collected | 8 times | Rewrite |
| 03, Greeting | References a discount code that expired in March | 44 times | Update |
| 19, Escalation holding | No timeframe given to the customer | 6 times | Add a timeframe |
Macro 03 is in 44 of 90 sampled tickets and has referenced an expired code since March. That is roughly 1,400 customers a month being offered something that does not work.
Fixes
What to change, and what it is worth
- Today
Fix macro 03
One line. It is in half your tickets and it has been wrong for seven months. Ten minutes.
- This week
Pick one returns rule and make everything say it
From delivery is the kinder rule and the one your emails already promise. Change the portal calculation, delete macro 22, rewrite macro 14 and update the policy page. One decision, four places.
- This week
Put the return shipping deduction in the confirmation email
It is the third contact in section 02 and it is entirely avoidable. One sentence.
- Within a month
Add the window date to the order confirmation
Not the rule, the date. Returns accepted until 8 October. Removes the arithmetic and therefore removes the argument.
- After 6 weeks
Re-sample 90 tickets
Watch the returns share of contacts, not the quality score. If returns drops from 31 percent toward the low teens, this worked.
| Fix | Effort | Expected effect |
|---|---|---|
| Macro 03 | 10 min | Removes a wrong promise from 1,400 contacts a month |
| One returns rule everywhere | Half a day | The largest item here |
| Shipping deduction in the email | 15 min | Removes a recurring second complaint |
| Window date in confirmation | Dev work, small | Removes the arithmetic entirely |
| Combined | About a day | Up to a fifth of all contacts |
If returns contacts halve, your four agents absorb roughly 450 fewer tickets a month. That is capacity, not a headcount saving, and it is the argument for doing this before hiring a fifth agent.